Challenging AuthoritarianisDl in
Southeast Asia
Comparing Indonesia and Malaysia
Edited I!J' Ariel Hoyanto and Sumit K
Alandal
Cooperative Security and the
Balance of Power in ASEAN and
theARF
Ralf Emmers
Islant in Indonesian Foreign Policy
Rizal Sukma
Media, War and TerrorisDl
Responses from the Middle East
and Asia
Edited ~J' Peter Van der Veer and Shoma
Alwlshi
China, ArDlS Control and
Nonproliferation
H/fJw'), Frieman
COIllDlunitarian Politics in Asia
Edited I!J' Chua Beng Huat
East TiDlor, Australia and
regional order
Intervention and its aftermath in
Southeast Asia
James Cotton
DODlestic Politics, International
Bargaining and China's
Territorial Disputes
Chien-peng Chung
DeD10cratic DevelopD1ent in
East Asia
Beck)' Shelley
The International Politics of
the Asia-Pacific
Michael Jahuda
The International
Politics of the
Asia-Pacific
Second and revised edition
Michael Yahuda
I~ ~~o~~~~n~~~~urzon
LONDON AND NEW YORK
280 The post-Cold War period
44 Suettinger, B~J'ond Tiananmen (op. cit.), p.405.
45 Ibid., p.399.
46 See the account in International Institute of Strategic Studies, Strategic Surv!!)'
2000/2001 (London: Oxford University Press, 200 I), pp.191~ 199.
47 Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), p.340.
48 John Larkin, 'New Leader New Crisis', Far Eastern Ewnomic Review (9 January
2003), pp.12~ 16.
49 For analysis, which also compares this with the review that was published after
9/11, see Harry Harding, 'Asia in American Grand Strategy: The
Quadrennial Defense Review and the National Security Strategy' in Robert
M. Hathaway and Wilson Lee (eds), George W Bush and Asia: A Midterm
Assessment (Washington, DC: Woodrow \\lilson International Center for
Scholars, 2003), pp.43~56.
50 For an account of the approaches of the Bush administration to China and
East Asia before 9/11, see Kenneth Lieberthal, 'The United States and Asia in
2001', Asian Surv!!)' XUI, I aanuary~February 2002), pp.2~7.
51 For a considered, if at the end a critical, analysis of the Bush transformation of
American foreign policy, see Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America
Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign PoliO' (Washington, DC: The Brookings
Institution, 2003).
52 Sebastian Moffett et al., Japan: Marching On To A New Role' Far Eastern
Economic Review (I 5January 2004), pp.18~21.
53 Lieberthal, 'The United States and Asia in 200 I' (op. cit.), pp.I-13.
54 For a brief background, see International Institute of Strategic Studies, Strategic
Surv!!)' 2002/2003 (London: Oxford University Press, 2003), 'The Delicate
Strategic Balance in South Asia', pp.205~219. See also Jay Solomon, 'South
Asia: Trade Trumps War' Far Eastern Economic Review (15 January 2004),
pp.I4-17.
55 On the Russian perspective, see Gilbert Roznan, 'Russian Foreign Policy in
Northeast Asia' in Samuel S. Kim (ed.), The International Relations of Northeast
Asia (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), pp.201~224.
56 For a detailed study of the war on terrorism in Southeast Asia, see Rommel C.
Banlaoi, War on Terrorism in Southeast Asia (Quezon City: Strategic and
Integrative Studies Center, 2003). _.
57 Barry Desker, 'The ]emaah Islamiya Phenomenon in Singapore', Contemporary
Southeast Asia 25, 3 (December 2003), pp.489~507.
58 For an account of how China turned that to its advantage, see Michael
Vatikiotis and Murray Hiebert, 'How China is Building an Empire', Far Eastern
Economic Review (20 November 2003), pp.30~33.
59 For background on South Korea, see Chung-in Mooon and Taehwan Kim,
'South Korea's International Relations: Challenges to Developmental
Realism?' in Kim (ed.), International Relations of Northeast Asia (op. cit.),
pp.251~279.
60 For an account of the divisions within the Bush administration, seeJim Mann,
Rise of the Vulcans Inside the Bush War Cabinet (New York: Viking Press, 2004).
61 International Institute of Strategic Studies, Strategic Surv!!)' 2002/2003 (op. cit.),
pp. 194-205.
62 For recent views of leading American scholars on this and related topics, see
Donald S. Zagoria (ed.), Breaking the China~ Taiwan Impasse (Westport: Praeger,
2003); andJonathan D. Pollack (ed.), Strategic Surprise (Newport, RI: Naval War
College Press, 2004).
10 China
China's rising power and influence
In the period since the end of the Cold War, China has gone on to recover
from the stigma attached to it after the Tiananmen massacre to emerge at
the outset of the twenty-first century as the rising great power in Asia. It's
booming economy has placed China at the centre of the economies of the
region, and its deft diplomacy has transformed China into a proactive
player that is shaping the new regionalism in East Asia. At the time of
writing in early 2004, China is enjoying better relations simultaneously
with the United States, all the regional great powers and all its neighbours
than at any other time in modern history. There have been times when it
has had better relations with one or more of these countries, but not with
all of them at the same time.
Of course, China's international relations are not without their problems,
and some of these could well emerge to weaken the country's current
impressive position. These stem in part from domestic economic and political
issues associated with its rapid economic growth and in part from
international issues such as the long standing difficulties in managing relations
with the United States, the sole superpower, and Japan, the principal
regional rival. China could also be knocked off course by the eruption of
the two regional 'hot-spots', Taiwan and North Korea. In other words,
China's current international well-being may be less stable than it appears
at first sight.
Nevertheless, contrary to the expectations of many inside and outside of
China, the CPC (Communist Party of China) has shown few signs of
collapsing. As a Leninist dictatorship the CPC has nonetheless presided
over the transformation of the country from a command to a semi-market
economy that is in most respects integrated into the global capitalist
economy. In the process the CPC rule has gradually changed from a totalitarian
one dominating all aspects of economy, society and culture to an
authoritarian one that allows its citizens more freedom in their daily lives.
Nevertheless, the CPC remains highly effective in suppressing any
282 The post-Cold l1iar period
manifestation of what it regards as organized opposition. Moreover, the
dictatorial communist character of its political system is a factor in limiting
China's capacity to be fully integrated into the intern·ational community. It
also contributes to the difficulties in accommodating China's rising power
in East Asia.
The process of economic reform and opening began some ten years
earlier; however, the end of the Cold War contributed significantly in facilitating
China's rise. It brought to an end the lingering Soviet threat,
enabling China's leaders to feel for the first time in the forty years since the
establishment of the PRC and indeed for the first time since the Opium
Wars more than 150 years ago that the Chinese heartland was no longer
under threat of invasion by a superior modern force. That alone provided
China with new strategic latitude. The dissolution of the Soviet empire left
China with a weakened Russia and three fragile new Central Asian states
to its north and west, instead of the still formidable might of the Soviet
Union. Similarly, the end of the deployment of the Soviet Pacific fleet in
East Asian waters greatly reduced Chinese security concerns in maritime
Southeast Asia especially.
The ending of the Cold War provided the Chinese with the opportunity
to focus more single-mindedly on economic growth, economic reform and
openness. As the ideological and physical barriers of the Cold War were
lifted throughout the world, the process of globalization took off, especially
in the economic sense of increasing the tempo of the internationalization of
the chains of production, the movement of financial capital and the rapid
spread of the information revolution. The new acceleration of globalization
could not have been better timed to suit the new approach of China's
communist leaders. 1 The core of the legacy of Deng Xiaoping was to
emphasize economic development and opening to the international
economy as the means to facilitate high economic growth rates, which"he
saw as the key to ensuring the survival of CPC rule. Not only were Chinese
rulers able to benefit from a more peaceful international environment, but
also their dash for growth coincided with developments within the region
and the world at large, which eased China's path. Interestingly, for a leadership
that continued to be highly sensitive to challenges to what was seen as
its 'sovereignty', economic globalization was not seen by the government as
a threat to China's independence, even though the issue was controversial
within the country.2 The majority of leaders welcomed it as necessary for
the country's rapid economic development and modernization. Sovereignty
tended to be seen in more political and strategic terms. In the mid-1990s,
before China's leaders had accommodated themselves to American global
pre-eminence, they claimed that growing 'economic globalization and political
multi-polarity' shaped international developments.3
1 China 283
China also became integrated into multilateral regional institutions.
Indeed, one of the reasons for their emergence at this time was the interest
of neighbours in trying to engage China and encourage it to accept the
norms of cooperative behaviour that characterized relations among
members of ASEAN. In this way it was hoped to mitigate the fears that
some neighbours had about the possible adverse effects of a rising China.
China's rulers responded positively, and before too long they became active
themselves in promoting new forms of multilateralism in Central Asia and
in advancing concepts of cooperative security in Southeast Asia. By the
turn of the century the Chinese economy had become central to the
regional economy as a whole. By this point China's rulers recognized that
the world was not becoming multipolar and they accepted that the United
States would remain the only global power for the foreseeable future.
Official Chinese statements stopped calling for the replacement of
America's alliances in the region as relics from the Cold War. That proved
reassuring to neighbours who saw them as sources of stability in the
region. China's rulers were then better able to translate their new found
economic significance into new forms of association that had profound
implications for the international relations of the region.
More broadly, from the mid-I 990s onwards, China signed up to a large
number of international agreements and treaties that went beyond the
merely self-serving to include those that also confined its freedom of action
and obliged it to bring its domestic legislation and practices into accordance
with the relevant international rules. These ranged from the fields of
arms control and anti-proliferation agreements to human rights conventions,
as well as economic ones, for example, that arose from accession to
the World Trade Organization (WTO). China was becoming a fully paid
up member of the international community in terms of participation in
international organizations and acceptance of international norms4 In
this period, China's attitude towards multilateral institutions proceeded
from wariness and suspicion in the wake of Tiananmen of their being
instruments of American interests to regarding them in the mid-I 990s as
more neutral bodies that can express international rules that could under
certain circumstances constrain even the United States. Finally, by the turn
of the twenty-first century, China's leaders and diplomats had begun to see
multilateral institutions as offering prospects for the promotion of Chinese
interests by accommodating the perspectives of others.
However, not all the new trends of the post-Cold War period worked to
the advantage of China's rulers. In particular, Beijing opposed the
tendency of Western countries and the United States in particular to arrogate
to themselves the right to intervene in sovereign states to prevent
established governments from slaughtering their citizens, or engaging in
284 The post-Cold War period
ethnic cleansing. That tendency elevated the right of humanitarian intervention
over state sovereignty and non-intervention. It also drew attention
to the serial violations of human rights and the poor treatment of minorities
by China's rulers. The democratization of Taiwan (which has been
seen as part of an international 'third wave' of democratization) has also
changed the modalities of the Taiwan problem in at least two major
respects that have increased the difficulties of the PRC. First, Beijing has
had to deal with a democratically elected government whose legitimacy is
derived from the people, who have shown no interest in unifying with the
Chinese mainland on terms acceptable to China's communist rulers.
Second, Beijing has found that the democratization of Taiwan has intensified
the support the island receives from within the United States - greatly
complicating China's pivotal relations with the sole superpower.
The consequences of 9/11, however, may be said to have worked in
China's favour, due in no small degree to the deftness of Chinese diplomacy.
Since then China has been regarded as a 'partner' by the Bush administration
in the war against terrorism, rather than as a potential 'strategic
competitor', as had been the case earlier that year. Both sides have attested to
an exchange of intelligence and China has also been credited with making
effective attempts to prevent money laundering and the dispersion of funds
to finance terrorists. China has also beefed up its laws to prevent the export
of WMD and related technologies. For its part, the US has publicly identified
by name an organization operating in Xinjiang as a terrorist outfit
allegedly responsible for many deaths, thereby giving credence to Beijing's
claims that its suppression of Uighurs (ethnic Muslims) is part of the struggle
against international terrorism. Even though Beijing has had to acquiesce in
a significant American deployment of forces in Central Asia and in a greater
American activism in Southeast Asia targeted at terrorists active in the
region, its leaders have been able to increase China's presence in both subregions.
By focusing on the mutual benefits of the country's more active
economic role in the region, China's leaders have been able to strengthen
ties and develop something of a leadership role. It is one that no longer seeks
to displace the Americans, but rather to gather strength as the US concentrates
on more traditional security roles and on combating terror. Moreover,
it is one that has enabled China's leaders to play the role of facilitator in
encouraging multilateral talks to diffuse the problem of North Korea. It is a
role much appreciated by the American side.
By the beginning of the twenty-first century China had emerged as a
major driver of the East Asian economies and as a leading player in the
more cooperative patterns of relations that were developing in the
region as a whole. The evolution of China's role in the Asia-Pacific from
being the pariah of Tiananmen to one of economic and diplomatic
China 285
leadership in the region is best followed chronologically, while not
neglecting thematic questions.
Recovery frolD. the TianaIl1D.en disaster, 1989-1993
The Chinese authorities recovered from the Tiananmen disaster and the
subsequent unexpected collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern
Europe and the demise of the motherland of communism, the Soviet
Union, by focusing on economic development at home and by cultivating
ties with Asian neighbours as they waited for the tide of Western
ostracism to retreat. But they did so over a two to three year period, and
not without heated debate at home. The initial reaction of the majority of
the communist leaders was to draw down the shutters against what was
depicted as a Western campaign to undermine the communist system by a
process of what was called 'peaceful evolution'. That was traced way back
to the avowedly anti-communist secretary of state of the 1950s, John
Foster Dulles. The Western emphasis on human rights was seen very
much as part of that campaign. It may be recalled that China's leaders
(unlike their Soviet counterparts) had been spared such criticism during
the 1960s and 1970s, when the most egregious violations of human rights
took place. Only towards the end of the 1980s did Western human rights
organizations begin to target China. The initial reaction of China's
leaders was to see the raising of human rights issues as unwarranted interference
in China's domestic affairs. Mter Tiananmen the human rights
question was seen as part of alleged attempts by Westerners to undermine
communist rule. The more conservative or leftist leaders who were now in
the majority held Deng Xiaoping personally responsible for the
Tiananmen disaster, for having pressed the reforms too fast and for
having chosen unreliable successors in the persons of Hu Yaobang and
Zhao Ziyang. As Deng lost some of his political standing the conservativelleftist
leaders sought to slow down the reforms and reduce the
opening to the outside. Matters were only settled in the early spring of
1992 when Deng Xiaoping made a 'southern tour', in which he made a
series of speeches that had the effect of swinging the country away from
leftist conservatism and towards rapid economic growth and deeper integration
with the international (capitalist) economy.5
Deng, who had ostensibly stepped down from all his formal posts in
1989, after Tiananmen, used his informal position as core leader to ram
home the message that the real danger to Communist Party rule would be
a failure to deliver on the economy. It was simply unacceptable to return to
Soviet-style economics (even of a reformed kind) and blame the disorders
of Tiananmen on 'bourgeois liberalization' as a product of the reform
286 The post-Cold War period
process and the opening to the West. One of· the major reasons for the
collapse of the Soviet Union, he and his supporters argued, was the failure
of its economy to respond to the needs of its people. The 88-year-old
Deng argued that the principal danger to China came not from economic
reformers, but from the leftists and their ideological conservatism.
Thereafter, Deng's agenda of economic reform and opening was not seriously
challenged again. With careful management by his successors, that
agenda provided the avenue through which China was to emerge into a
position of respect and leadership in the region a decade later. There was,
however, a third item on his agenda, the insistence on 'stability' as
provided by the Communist Party's retention of the monopoly of power.
This effectively put an end to any further serious consideration being given
to political as opposed to economic reform. Arguably, the preservation of
party power was the core of his legacy andJiang Zemin linked support for
the party and its leaders to the upholding of patriotism. The legitimacy of
party rule became based on the provision of economic growth and patriotism.
Monopolistic rule by the Communist Party ostensibly provided the
platform on which the country could focus on economic goals, and it also
prevented the many new sources of social conflict that were being generated
by the rapid pace of economic and social changes from overwhelming
public order. But at the same time the refusal to engage in serious political
reform obstructed the emergence of a civil society with a plurality of
groups and organizations that would facilitate tackling many of the new
problems arising from economic disparities, corruption, etc., and would
also help in holding officials to account. The lack of political reform
increased the difficulties of integrating China into a world where human
rights issues and transparency about communicable diseases and other
matters were becoming more important.
The Tiananmen massacre, however, gave China's rulers the opportunity
to take greater note of the significant roles their neighbours could play
in China's foreign relations. As China became an international pariah and
the object of sanctions by the United States, the European Union and the
Group of Seven (as it then was), it was noticeable that China's Asian
neighbours refrained from joining the chorus of condemnation. Not only
were they wary of Western-led 'interference' in the internal affairs of third
world countries, but they were especially concerned about the consequences
of isolating China. They did not wish to see China once again
withdraw into itself, with its leaders fearful and suspicious of the outside
world and its people shut off from the world. Having seen the benefits to
their own security and well-being of a more outwardly engaged China in
the I 980s, they had much to fear from a return to the containment of the
1950s and 1960s. Additionally, whatever the views of \Vestern countries
l'f
!
China 287
about the benefits of the possible collapse of China's communist regime,
China's neighbours knew that the possible breakdown of the Chinese state
and the attendant chaos and misery would bring those living within reach
of China nothing but trouble and economic hardship. This has long been
the view in Japan, and it became evident after Tiananmen that most of
China's Asian neighbours took the same view as they sought to develop
relations with the giant country rather than join the Western countries in
imposing sanctions.
Furthermore, China had become a key player in the resolution of the
Cambodian conflict, and it was this that prompted President Suharto of
Indonesia to recognize China in 1990 (having long refused to do so
because of China's alleged involvement in the failed 1965 coup).
Singapore soon followed suit. Japan also made it clear in the G-7 that it
was reluctant to impose sanctions in the first place, and it was instrumental
in lifting the embargo on loans soon after. For their part China's leaders,
perhaps for the first time, recognized the contribution that the region could
make to China's diplomacy and economy. Foreign Minister Qjan Qjchen
began to reach out to neighbouring countries on the ostensible grounds of
'China's traditional friendship'.
The new approach had its origins in diplomacy towards the countries to
the north. Beijing confined its misgivings about Gorbachev and subsequently
Yeltsin for their part in the collapse of communism and the Soviet
Union to domestic audiences only. Externally, China's leaders pursued a
diplomatically 'correct' course towards Russia and the other (new)
members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), especially in
Central Asia. They showed their new sense of 'responsibility' by not trying
to take immediate advantage of their unexpected strategic opportunities.
Far from seeing an exposed and vulnerable Mongolia as ripe for a revision
of the past wrong, when according to official Chinese histories it was
unjustly separated from China by traitorous monks and by foreign interference
at the end of the Qjng Empire, China's leaders immediately
reaffirmed their recognition of its independence and territorial integrity.
China's top state leaders visited the bereft Republic of Mongolia in quick
succession within a month of the demise of its great protector, the Soviet
Union. The border negotiations, which had begun with Gorbachev's
Soviet Union, were continued with Russia and the three adjacent Central
Asian states in a multilateral setting, as Moscow still had the key documents
and the foreign ministries of the new states were staffed with former
diplomats of the Soviet Union. It made sense to work collectively.
Meanwhile, China worked assiduously to resolve problems left over from
the previous relationship with the Soviet Union in an effort to smooth relations
and open borders for trade, and to get the agreement of the adjacent
if'
!;
288 The post-Cold War period
states to clamp down on Uighurs from Xinjiang engaged in separatist
activities. Flexibility was also displayed by the Chinese in the management
of border matters with India and Vietnam. Without their Soviet ally, each
now sought better relations with China. The Chinese adopted a more
neutral position on Kashmir and it no longer openly challenged Indian
dominance of South Asia.6
China's leaders proved adept at using their country's standing as a great
power to break through the isolation imposed by sanctions. In 1990 the
British prime minister, John Major, had to go to Beijing and meet with
Premier Li Peng (who had declared martial law prior to the massacre in
Tiananmen Square), in order to reach an agreement on Hong Kong's new
airport that was deemed essential for the future of the territory prior to its
return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. In November 1990, in return for
not vetoing a UN resolution authorizing an attack on Iraq for annexing
Kuwait by force, China's foreign minister, Qian Qichen, was invited to the
White House in November 1990 to meet President Bush, who in any event
was only too pleased to note a strategic rationale for improving relations.7
South Korea also sought to reach across to China in the hope of breaking
the impasse imposed by the legacy of the Cold War and of bringing more
pressure to bear on North Korea to be more accommodating to the South.
Unofficial economic relations were established, building on the informal
economic links established in the late 1980s between ethnic Koreans in
China's northeast and South Korea. A breakthrough was reached in 1992,
when China recognized South Korea and indicated that it would not try to
block its entry into the United Nations, thus forcing the hand of the North,
who had no other supporter.8 China was not going to allow supposed ideological
affinities to stand in the way of the pursuit of its national interests.
That also signalled to the rest of the region that China did not see itself as
the leader of the remnant communist world and that it had no intention of
establishing a fraternal entity of communist states in the region.
Most of the East Asian countries were seeking to draw China into the
pattern of multilateral relations of the region so as socialize the country
into accepting a pattern of relations that had helped the diverse countries
to avoid conflict, respect each others interests and contribute to shoring up
their respective statehoods. ASEAN in particular was keen to establish
what was called a pattern of 'constructive engagement', so as to inculcate
in its leaders something of the 'ASEAN Way'. Despite the fact that (or
perhaps because) China had passed a law in 1992 defining its sovereign
territory as all of its maritime claims, including the Spratly Islands
(claimed or in whole or in part by five others, including Taiwan), ASEAN
was keen to develop consultative relations with the giant country.9 Efforts
in that regard were begun between the two sides in 1993, and in July that
China 289
year the Chinese foreign minister joined with those of ASEAN, its seven
dialogue partners, its three who enjoyed observer status and Russia in
agreeing to inaugurate the ASEAN Regional Forum as a vehicle for
.addressing regional security issues. 10 Earlier, in August 1991, China had
been admitted into APEC alongside Hong Kong (which technically was
still under British authority) and Taiwan (under the name of Chinese
Taipei). This was indicative of Beijing's readiness to present a soft and
responsible image abroad, despite the hardness of domestic politics in the
aftermath of Tiananmen.
Within two to three years of the Tiananmen disaster China had established
good working relations with nearly all its neighbours. As seen from
China, these relations were valuable in themselves for stabilizing the immediate
external environment at a time of internal political vulnerability, and
they were also useful as a counter to what was seen as the American-led
campaign to contain and punish the Chinese regime. China's neighbours,
in turn, were keen to engage their giant neighbour in constructive relations,
given the uncertainties of the years immediately following the end of
the Cold War. These developments proved to be the genesis of a concerted
regional policy by China.
FrolD. ennlity to 'partnership': relations with the
US during the Clinton adJninistration, 1992-2000
Notwithstanding the gains the Chinese had achieved in relations with their
neighbours, the relationship with the United States was the principal issue
in China's foreign policy. From a geopolitical perspective the United States
was by far the dominant player in China's region and, now that the Soviet
Union had dissolved, it was evident that China could not develop what was
in effect an export-led economic strategy in the teeth of American opposition.
Yet it was difficult to cultivate cooperative relations with a country that
seemed bent on challenging China's political system. Additionally, many of
China's elite were convinced that the United States was opposed to the rise
of China because it threatened to reduce or even displace American power
and influence in the region. This view was reinforced by the perceptions
that, despite its absolute strength, the US was in relative decline as a superpower
and that it was being restrained by the emergence of a more
multipolar world. It was generally thought that the American interest in
preventing Beijing from unifying Taiwan was to keep China divided and
hence limit its capacity to emerge as a truly great power.II Most Chinese
entertained ambivalent attitudes towards America: the United States was
admired as providing the yardstick against which to measure China's
progress and relative power, but it was also feared for allegedly blocking
290 The post-Cold War period
China's rise and for seeking to impose its own political values on China. As
far as the military were concerned, their ability to bring credible coercive
power to bear on Taiwan to prevent it from declaring independence
required the capacity to inflict sufficient damage on any American naval
forces that might intervene so as to keep them at bay. Likewise, the only
country that could degrade the deterrent capabilities of China's nuclear
forces was the United States. Finally, it was the United States that dominated
the sea lanes and key trade routes, on which the Chinese economy
increasingly depended. Yet, from an economic perspective, it was essential
to retain cooperative relations with the US. Not only was it China's largest
market and source of advanced technology, but it also provided the public
goods in the region and more broadly in the wider world, from which
China's economy benefited. This was well understood by Deng Xiaoping,
who famously cautioned his successors against openly challenging the US
and charged them in foreign affairs: 'Observe the development soberly,
maintain our position, meet the challenge, hide our capacities, bide our
time, remain free of ambitions, and never claim leadership.'J2
Tiananmen continued to cast a long shadow over China's relations with
the United States, even as a slow recovery from the nadir of 4June 1989 took
place during the Bush administration. Although it helped that Bush himself
sought to restore amicable relations, it did not alter the fact that most of
China's leaders regarded the US as an ideological adversary, whose general
policy in the world was inimical to the interests of China (as these were
understood by China's communist leaders). They regarded the American
policy of criticizing the pursuit of its Tiananmen enemies' as a human rights
issue as a continuing attempt to destabilize Communist Party rule and to
undermine the stability of the country. Similarly, they characterized the
economic sanctions endorsed by the president in the same vein - even though
these were considerably milder than what Congress had had in mind: The
Chinese abstention on the UN vote on Iraq was less an endorsement of the
American position than an unwillingness to stand alone in blocking action
against Iraq at the UN Security Council. In fact, the Chinese came closer to
the Russian position of seeking to find a negotiated settlement. In the event,
the Chinese were taken aback by the display of awesome American power
and the ease with which its revolution in military affairs enabled the US to
achieve a rapid victory. The Iraqi armed forces were in many ways equipped
with more advanced Soviet weapons than those available to the Chinese
themselves. The Gulf War revealed to China's leaders how far behind they
were and how vulnerable they had become to American power. The Chinese
military changed their whole concept of modern warfare as a result and they
began to conduct new types of military exercises, with the US regarded by
most as the expected enemy: 13
China 291
By 1992, however, the Chinese felt surer about their domestic political
recovery and, as was noted previously, Deng Xiaoping had swung the main
driver of Chinese politics early that year away from a leftist preoccupation
with the threat of 'peaceful evolution' from the West towards a policy of
going all out for economic growth and opening to the outside. The US too
had begun to shift away from the shocked reaction to Tiananmen. The
agenda of Sino-American relations began to be dictated by battles over the
question of tying in the annual extension of normal trade conditions (technically
known as Most Favoured Nation treatment ~ MFN) to China's
human rights performance. Congress determined that, in the event of
Beijing's failure to satisfy the US on specific matters of human rights, it
would revoke MFN. President Bush was able to veto the proposed bill
every year, as there was not a sufficient majority to override the veto. But it
meant that every year the Chinese government found what it saw as its
legitimate domestic security concerns subject to political battles in
Washington, with the threat of what it saw as economic blackmail.
Additionally, the US also objected to China's sales of missiles and its proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to Pakistan and to what
later were termed 'rogue states'. Another issue was the growing American
concern about the infringement of intellectual property rights. From the
perspective of China's rulers, most of the American concerns focused on
China's internal affairs, and the human rights question in particular
related to issues that went to the heart of the preservation of the Chinese
communist system itself. The final year of the Bush administration also
raised afresh the problem of Taiwan. For reasons of domestic electoral
politics, President Bush announced in August 1992 that he would sanction
the sale of 150 F-16 military aircraft to Taiwan. In China this was seen as
a violation of the 17 August 1982 agreement that limited the quality of
arms sales that the US could sell to Taiwan. More significantly, the sale of
the F-16s coupled with the agreement of the US to press for Taiwan's
admission to the GATT and the increased seniority of the Taiwanese
allowed to visit the US, persuaded China's leaders that the US had shifted
its policy toward Taiwan. 'Henceforward, no arms sales would go uncontested,
no visit unprotested, no hint of change in the procedures for
US~Taiwan relations unchallenged.>l4
With the advent of the Clinton administration, from a Chinese
perspective things went from bad to worse. First, President Clinton
endorsed the approach by Congress of making the granting of MFN in
1994 conditional on China's performance in a number of areas, including
human rights. Second, Anthony Lake, Clinton's national security adviser,
declared that the broad objective for the foreign policy of the new administration
was to be the 'enlargement of democracy and of free trade'.15
292 The post-Cold War period
That could only bring more pressure to bear on China's communist
rulers. Although they might have been expected to have fewer misgivings
about the enlargement of free trade, they were less pleased that free trade
was presented as an instrument for promoting democracy. The Chinese
reaction was to stonewall on the demands of the White House and the
State Department, while seeking to cultivate American economic interests,
including major corporations, business groups and even the
Department of Commerce. As the Chinese government dug in its heels
and pressure mounted from business interests, coupled with arguments
that overall relations with China should not be held hostage to a single
issue such as human rights, Clinton gave way and formally de-linked
MFN from other matters. 16
Although China's economic relations with the United States were
expanding rapidly, these too raised many problems. There was a growing
American deficit in trade with China, which climbed from US$13 billion
in 1992 to US$34 billion in 1995Y The American market was the single
largest one for China's exports, and Chinese imports from America of
advanced technology, including supercomputers and aircraft, were very
important for upgrading China's technological capacities. Americans
complained about problems of access to the Chinese market and China's
failure to implement its own laws on safeguarding intellectual property
rights. The US Congress complained about the growing trade deficit as
supposedly based on unfair Chinese trading practices and the use of prison
labour. Meanwhile, the administration placed restrictions on the sale of
military sensitive technology to China and threatened economic sanctions
because of Chinese proliferation of missiles and nuclear technology which
it sold to Pakistan and certain countries in the Middle East. The Chinese,
for their part, complained of these American restrictions and tended to
claim that they could look to the Europeans to supply much of the technology
and equipment being denied to them by the American
government, while also pointing out to American business corporations
their intention to provide better access to their European competitors to
the potentialities of China's huge domestic market. These disputes might
have mattered less had there been leadership on both sides of the Pacific
that was attentive to the broader significance of Sino-American relations.
It took the crisis over Taiwan of 1995-1996 to concentrate the attention
of both sets of leaders. The Taiwan question had become even more
important to Beijing in the wake of Tiananmen when so much emphasis
was placed on patriotism to bolster the legitimacy of communist rule. Not
only had the issue of unification acquired greater salience, but the
American attitude had become more suspect, as it was thought to have a
stronger motive in maintaining Taiwan's separation from the mainland so
1 China 293
as to keep China divided. Beijing had reacted warily to the beginnings of
democratization in Taiwan in the late I980s and early I990s, but not with
undue alarm as, for example, it did not attempt to prevent Taiwan's accession
to APEC, insisting only on the nomenclature of 'Chinese Taipei'.
There was even a point at which Beijing's 'unofficial' representative met
Taipei's equivalent in Singapore in 1993. But increasingly Lee Teng-hui,
the leader of Taiwan, was seen as moving Taiwan away from China and
towards independence, both in domestic and external policies. As Jiang
Zemin consolidated his position as successor to Deng Xiaoping, who by
this time was incapacitated by advanced age, he issued an eight point statement
on Taiwan inJanuary 1994 that expressed concern at what were seen
as growing separatist tendencies, emphasized the centrality of the 'One
China Principle', called for broader economic and other exchanges and
asserted that Beijing sought peaceful reunification, reserving the use of
force to prevent the separation of the island from the mainland and
against foreign interference. The eight points were designed ostensibly to
open the way to talks and to show that he was investing his prestige and
personal political capital in the exercise. But Lee Teng-hui in effect
rebuffed him three months later. That rebuff and Lee's whole position in
widening the distance from the mainland were made possible, in the view
of Beijing, only because of the connivance of the Americans, who were
seen as not living up to their commitments on the 'One China policy'.18
The American neglect of China's commitment to Taiwan may also be
seen as a consequence of the ending of the Cold War, after which the US
no longer needed China as a strategic ally against the Soviet Union.
Objecting to a visit made in June 1995 by President Lee Teng-hui of
Taiwan to his alma mater, Cornell University, where he made a highly
political speech, the Chinese decided that they had to show both Clinton
and Lee that matters had gone too far and that they could bring pressure
to bear on both. They responded the following month by conducting
military exercises opposite Taiwan that simulated an invasion, and by
firing some six missiles into the sea some eighty-five miles north of
Taiwan. Notwithstanding a working summit between presidents Clinton
and Jiang in New York in October, Sino-American relations did not
greatly improve and in late November - one week before parliamentary
elections in Taiwan - the Chinese launched even more intensive military
exercises opposite Taiwan, coupled with a propaganda barrage to ram
home the message that the People's Liberation Army was capable and
prepared to prevent Taiwan from moving towards independence. The
PIA threats arguably (at least as seen in Beijing) influenced the results of
the elections, as the pro-unification New Party gained marginally and the
pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party did not make as many
294 The post-Cold War period
gains as expected. Emboldened by the effect on Taiwan and by
America's less than robust response, the PLA, whose influence on decision
making on Taiwan appeared to have grown, went even further in
seeking to intimidate Taiwan in the lead-up to the first ever presidential
elections on 23 March 1996. Three missiles were launched within thirty
miles of the island's main ports in the north and the south on 8 March.
Washington responded by announcing the dispatch of two nuclear
aircraft carrier-led battle groups, one to be located off the east coast of
Taiwan and the other off the Philippines. Together they constituted the
largest deployment of naval forces in the Pacific since the Vietnam War.
The PLA, as scheduled, continued its large military exercises off the
coast opposite Taiwan, but launched only one more missile. This time,
however, the Taiwan electorate responded adversely to Beijing's
attempted intimidation: the defiant Lee Teng-hui won with a majority
larger than expected and the two candidates favouring closer ties with
the PRC polled only 25 percent between them. 19
Beijing, of course, claimed success for its tactics, suggesting that they
had also persuaded Washington to cut back its alleged support for Lee's
drive towards independence. But the PLA military exercises had ended
ingloriously and Lee had gained strength from them. Tellingly, Beijing has
not repeated such direct attempts at intimidation. While Washington may
have been made more attentive to the importance of the Taiwan issue for
Beijing, it was also true that the US had been drawn into demonstrating an
explicit and effective commitment to defend Taiwan with a capacity to
operate otT China's shores with impunity. Additionally, China's bellicosity
gave credence to more people in the US and even among China's neighbours
to the idea that China could be a 'threat'. This was also the year
(1995) in which the Philippines found that China had secretly established
installations on Mischief Reef, barely 120 miles from the Filipino coast,
giving rise to accusations of creeping assertiveness by the Chinese. Being
unable to afford the loss of support of neighbours, the Chinese government
for the first time agreed that the question of the South China Sea
could be discussed collectively with ASEAN. Even though the Chinese
insisted that they would only deal with disputed claims over sovereignty on
a bilateral basis, this was a significant breakthrough for ASEAN. Although
Beijing agreed to treat the smaller neighbours collectively at this juncture
from a position of relative diplomatic weakness, this was in the end to pay
dividends. At this point, however, Beijing found once again that by making
procedural concessions to its neighbours it could draw on them as a kind of
balance against the US.
Stemming from the new strategic review (the Nye Review) of January
1995 and independently of the Taiwan crisis, the United States and Japan
China 295
had agreed to upgrade their alliance to ensure that Japan would not find
itself unprepared to help its US ally as it was in the Gulf War. The agreement
to do so, in the form of new guidelines that allowedJapan to provide
logistic support for American forces engaged in combat, was announced by
the leaders of the two sides in April. China's firing of missiles in the seas
near Taiwan only a month earlier in particular, as those in the north were
not too far from the most southerly of Japan's islands, created an adverse
reaction inJapan that helped smooth the way for the signing of the accord
in 1996 with the US. The Chinese reaction was predictably critical, especially
as the Japanese would not exclude Taiwan from the area in which
potential logistic support might be granted. Thus the regional consequences
of China's attempt to intimidate Taiwan were largely adverse, at
least in the short term.20
One favourable consequence of the Taiwan crisis from Beijing's point
of view was that it encouraged both America and China to develop
regular lines of communication at the highest levels. This did not mean
that their long standing disputes over intellectual property rights, proliferation,
human rights, trade, etc. did not continue to affect relations, but the
stage was set for the holding of reciprocal state visits between Presidents
Jiang and Clinton, which duly took place in October 1997 in the US and
the following year in China. They took place amid the pomp and splendour
favoured by the Chinese president. Clinton's visit to China in June
1998 in particular marked a highpoint in the relationship. It was the first
time that an American president had gone there without taking the
opportunity to stop over in any other country, and it was the longest overseas
trip by Clinton during his presidency (nine days). China's leaders
were highly praised for not having devalued their currency during the
Asian financial crisis. This was seen as a major contribution to helping to
stabilize matters. In truth the Chinese had simply followed their own
economic and trading interests in not devaluing. China's leader was
delighted to be treated as a partner by Clinton, not only in being praised
over the financial crisis while the Japanese (hitherto America's mainstay
ally in Asia) were openly disparaged, but also as a fellow guardian of the
world's nuclear safety when they issued a joint condemnation of the
Indian nuclear tests. Indeed, the joint Sino-American communique spoke
of the two as 'working toward a strategic partnership' - repeating the
phrase first made in their summit the previous year. Clinton also became
the first president to say publicly that America did not support Taiwanese
membership of international organizations for which sovereignty was a
requisite for membership. This had been stated before, but what drew the
ire of the Taiwanese was that he said it in the PRC and that he seemed to
be drawing unduly close to Beijing.2!
296 The post-Cold War period
This high point of Sino-American concord had hardly survived the
drying of the ink of the communique when domestic developments in the
two countries showed that there was insufficient depth of support to
sustain such a lofty characterization of the relationship. China's rulers
moved systematically to crush the fledgling China Democracy Party, which
they regarded as an unacceptable organized challenge to communist party
rule that had been encouraged if not instigated by Clinton's visit. This
outraged human rights groups and their supporters in Congress and
embarrassed the White House. Meanwhile, reports emerged in the US of
illegal Chinese contributions to the electo~al funds of the Democratic
Party, and Congressman Cox began a formal investigation into allegations
of Chinese spying in the US. The idea of China as a strategic partner
came in for much criticism.
To correct what appeared to be a downward spiral in their relations, the
Clinton administration pressed the Chinese side to make a special effort to
join the WTO in the interests of enhancing their relations. The newly
appointed Premier Zhu Rongji was receptive to this, partly in order to
provide a lift to the economy in the wake of the Asian financial crisis and,
more importantly, as a measure to enhance the reform process in China.
The premier visited the US in April 1999, and he brought a package deal
with him including nearly all the concessions the American side had hoped
for. But once again the domestic problems on each side that have continually
got in the way of attempts by the two sets of leaders to consolidate
good relations came into play. President Clinton was worried that
Congress would block the agreement because of its failure to provide
protection for labour unions and manufacturers.
Although Premier Zhu had the support of PresidentJiang, antipathy
towards America was growing in the leadership because of the
American-led NATO intervention in former Yugoslavia that lacked a
UN mandate and was based on the post-Cold War view in the West that
'human rights trump state sovereignty' and involved NATO in 'out of
area' action. The concern was that China itself might one day become
a target in, say, Tibet or Xinjiang. Clinton's rejection of Zhu's offer and
the publication of it on the internet (showing which sectors in China
would be vulnerable) made Zhu 'lose face' and, even worse, exposed
him to criticism back home. Public sentiment had also turned against
the US. Two years earlier a highly popular book, The China That Can Say
No, gave expression to this and it was followed up by more considered
'New Left' publications that objected to globalization as
Americanization. Although Clinton reversed his position before Zhu's
departure, letting it be known that he would accept after all, the damage
had been done and il was loo late.22
China 297
At this sensitive juncture in the relationship, the US Air Force, which
had been bombing selected targets in Serbia as part of the NATO strategy
of compelling its government to stop its ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, accidentally
bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May. This provided a
turning point as much nationalist anger was turned against the American
embassy in Beijing and American consulates elsewhere. Li Peng and the
then-minister of defence, Chi Haotian, publicly called on people to vent
their ire against 'the common enemy' (the US). Tempers had barely cooled
before Lee Teng-hui claimed in an interview broadcast internationally that
Taiwan was already in effect independent and that therefore cross-Strait
relations were in a position of being 'a state-to-state relationship, or at least
a special state-to-state relationship'. Beijing reacted with strident military
rhetoric and looked to Washington to bring pressure to bear on Lee, which
it duly did, while still stressing its 'One China policy'.23
A difficult summer then ensued in China, involving divisions among
intellectuals and the public at large as well as the top leadership on how to
treat the US and how to engage the broader world. What has been called
the liberal view, which sought to enhance China's great power status
through improved economic performance, reform and engagement with
the international economy, prevailed. But it was a kind of 'liberalism with
Chinese characteristics', as it entailed the suppression of all perceived
organized opposition to Communist Party rule from religious groups, to
democrats, trade unionists and even leftist publications. By the autumn
Jiang had restored his authority and, recognizing entry into the WTO as
an opportunity to enhance China's standing as a great power as well as to
promote the reform process at home, Jiang was receptive to a Clinton
request to resume negotiations. On 15 November an agreement was
reached on the terms by which America would support China's entry to
the WTo. That was the major hurdle to joining, although there still
remained tough negotiations with the EU before the final obstacles were
cleared, so that China and Taiwan (as a customs territory) became
members at the end of the year.
Despite China's entry to the WTO and the burgeoning economic,
educational and social ties between China and the United States, relations
between the two countries continued to be subject to rapid fluctuations of
amity and enmity. In part this related to the differences between their political
systems and to clashes of values. For example, Beijing's vicious
suppression of the semi-Buddhist sect, the Falun Gong, which attracted a
large following for many who had lost out in the reform process and for
whom the sect provided succour, raised the ire of both the human rights
section of the Democratic Party and the Christian fundamentalist wing of
the Republican Party in joint opposition. But as seen by Jiang Zemin, the
298 The post-Cold War period
Falun Gong was a pernicious religious cult led by a dangerous man who
resided in the US, whose followers had penetrated into the Communist
Party and which constituted a threat to political and social order. But problems
also arose because of disagreements over Taiwan, especially now that
it had become a democracy, and, more broadly, because of differences in
the respective national interests between China and the US.
These problems reflected not only differences of interest between the
two sides, but also the persistence of divergent opinions among their
respective elites about their relations and the lack of solid support for
consolidating the relationship within their respective societies. On the
American side,]im Mann has argued that relations have been conducted
by a relatively small elite without the backing (and sometimes without the
knowledge) of the broader public.24 Put differently, successive presidents
have failed to explain their China policies in ways that have captured the
public imagination. On the Chinese side, as we have seen, there is a long
standing mixture of admiration and resentment of America as the
world's leading power that stands at the forefront of modernity, which
can be a positive force for China's own modernization, while simultaneously
being the main obstacle to China's rise as a great power. The
relationship with the US is frequently a part of domestic political arguments
and conflicts of interest over the character and pace of reform. So
that in China too, attitudes and policies towards the United States are
subject to swings and fluctuations.
China's regional multilateral diplomacy,
1995-2003
Although China had become a member of several regional multilateral
organizations before this date, 1995 may be seen as an important turning
point marking the time when Chinese diplomacy became more active, as
opposed to being for the most part reactive to the initiatives of others.
Although China had become a member of APEC in 1991 and was a
founder member of the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1994, it was only in
1995 that the Chinese formally agreed that issues of the South China Sea
could be discussed on a collective basis with ASEAN. This was also the
year in which the Philippines discovered that the Chinese had been secretly
building structures on Mischief Reef, an atoll only some 120 miles from
the Filipino coast. The significance of the meeting with the ASEAN group
as a whole is that China gave up its relative advantage as the regional great
power of dealing with these smaller states separately one by one.
Undoubtedly, the Chinese did so because they did not want their southeastern
neighbours to line up with the US against them in view of the
China 299
Taiwan crisis. But the critical point was that, as a result, the Chinese began
to pay more attention to their views and the Chinese have been careful
since. then not to repeat the Mischief Reef land grab elsewhere in the
SpraDy Islands chain. Moreover the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
began to use the multilateral institutions of the region to diffuse the fear of
China as a threat, to consolidate friendly relations, and to strengthen
China's role as a leading economic power in the region.
To be sure, China had joined a great number of international organizations
and signed up to a number of important binding international
agreements since the new policies began in 1978. In the 1980s these were
primarily key economic organizations from whose membership China
benefited greatly at minimal cost to itself But they had the effect of
bringing many of China's domestic economic practices into greater
conformity with current international custom.25 China also signed up to
several arms control agreements and treaties in the early 1990s that
imposed restrictions upon its behaviour, such as the Nuclear Proliferation
Treaty (1992) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (1996); more generally,
with the exception of transfers to Pakistan, China's observance of
norms regarding arms control and proliferation has been 'no worse than
that of other major powers [since the early 1990s]'.26 Later in the 1990s
China also signed the two main UN conventions on human rights.27 China
also began to send personnel to participate in UN peace keeping operations.28
In short China was becoming a participant in many of the
international institutions and practices, as befitted a country that sought
recognition as a responsible great power.
However, China's new activism in regional institutions was of a more
significant character. It constituted an attempt to shape a regional order in
accordance with China's interests and interestingly, for a country with little
experience of multilateral diplomacy in institutional settings, it was an
attempt to do so with due regard to the interests of the smaller countries of
the region. Even more interestingly, it was an attempt to do so while simultaneously
seeking accommodations with the great powers of the region,
Japan, India and Russia.
As ever, the question of the United States loomed large. For a good part
of the 1990s the Chinese appeared to think that the world was tending
towards a multipolar structure that would act as a counter-balance to the
power of the United States (the sole surviving superpower). But by 1999,
after heated debates within the country, the Chinese had reconciled themselves
to the fact that a multipolar system was not going to emerge anytime
soon and that, far from sinking into relative decline, the US had actually
gained in comprehensive strength compared to the rest of the world and
the gap between the US and the rest of the world was growing still wider.29
300 The post-Cold War period
They also found that they could not rely on the various partnerships that
they had established with other big powers to help them manoeuvre
against the United States. As a result China's leaders moved from trying to
use regional multilateralism as a means of reducing American influence to
using it as a means to strengthen the Chinese presence, not in overt
competition with the United States, but rather as a growing influence
alongside that of the Americans.3o
In 1997 China's leaders had articulated what they regarded as a 'New
Security Concept' based on cooperative and coordinated security. This is a
pattern of security appropriate for countries that are neither allies nor
adversaries. Indeed, it is part of the agreed objective of the ARF itself, as
spelt out in 1995, that this would be achieved in three stages, beginning
with CBMs before moving on to preventive diplomacy and concluding
with conflict resolution - or as the Chinese insisted it be formulated,
'approaches to solving conflict'. However, such an ordered approach was
not part of the new Chinese proposal, the details of which were left rather
vague beyond the encouragement of more CBMs. Indeed, it is widely held
within the ARF that the reason that the Forum has not proceeded from the
first stage of CBMs to the second stage of preventive diplomacy is due to
the Chinese dragging their feet. But the Chinese initially insisted that their
new concept, unlike the American military alliances, was well suited to
what they said was the new post-Cold War environment, characterized by
'peace and development'. The American alliances were said to be
remnants from a previous era and indicative of a Cold War mentality.
These views were put to the Southeast Asians in particular. In Northeast
Asia too, the Chinese looked forward to the removal of American forces in
South Korea. They expected that they would end up exercising predominant
influence on the Korean peninsula in due course. Meanwhile they
encouraged negotiations between the North and the US in the expectation
that these would result in the acceptance of the coexistence of both
Koreas, with Chinese influence growing in both.31 The US-Japan alliance
was in some respects more troubling, because it had been re-invigorated so
as to allow the Japanese to play a more active role in the region.
Nevertheless, the alliance was still preferable to the alternative of aJapan
that was let loose to develop independent security policies. But once the
Chinese accepted that they were stuck with a unipolar United States for
the foreseeable future, they stopped harassing the Southeast Asians on this
issue, recognizing that they had found ways of securing various arrangements
with the US as a means of hedging against China. Indeed, the
Chinese accepted that the Southeast Asians preferred to engage all the
great powers, including alsoJapan, Russia and India, so as to maximize the
manoeuvrability against each. One advantage to the Chinese was that they
China 301
were less feared under such circumstances, making their growing influence
in the region more acceptable.
China's leaders skilfully improved their position and their reception
by the Southeast Asians by focusing on the economic dimensions of
regionalism. Building on the framework of the ASEAN Plus Three
(APT), involving the ten ASEAN countries plus China, South Korea
and Japan, the Chinese presented their booming economy that was
attracting more imports from the other twelve as an opportunity for
their economies rather than as a threat. The fear in Southeast Asia was
that by attracting foreign investment away from ASEAN countries and
by making substantial inroads into their key foreign markets, such as the
EU and the US, China posed too strong a challenge to their well-being.
But Chinese diplomacy dwelt on the positive dimensions of their
economic relations. In 2001 Premier Zhu Rongji proposed that a
China-ASEAN free trade agreement be reached over a ten year period.
As far as South Korea and Japan were concerned, the Chinese side was
able to point out that by 200 1/2002 China had become a bigger market
for South Korea than the US and that the Chinese economic locomotive
was providing a boost for even the sluggish Japanese economy. It
mattered little at this stage that the magnitude of Chinese investment in
and total trade with most of these countries was way below that of the
United States and Japan. It spurred Japan to respond with its own
(bilateral) free trade agreements (FTAs) and to develop its own institutionalized
relationship with ASEAN. What mattered from a Chinese
perspective was that the country had largely shed its previous image as a
vaguely threatening outsider and had assumed that of an active and fast
growing partner.32
After negotiations that lasted more than three years,
the Chinese also agreed with the ASEAN countries the Declaration on
the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, by which the resident
states undertook to resolve territorial and jurisdictional disputes by
peaceful means and to refrain from inhabiting presently uninhabited
islands. They also agreed to develop more CBMs and to explore further
possibilities for cooperative activities, bilaterally or multilaterally. China,
which was already a signatory to the Southeast Asia Nuclear Free Zone,
took an additional step in demonstrating its commitment to meeting the
interests of its ASEAN partners by formally adhering to ASEAN's 1976
Treaty of Amity and Concord that set out a code of conduct for the
region based on the sanctity of national sovereignty.33 If the Chinese
had formally acceded to all the norms of regional inter-state conduct
that the Southeast Asians claimed determined their relations, the
Chinese in turn could now claim that they had been fully accepted as
partners. Clearly, they had less to fear of ASEAN countries adopting
i
i
I.
~, ;
302 The post-Cold War period
measures with others that would be detrimental to Chinese interests.
China had gained by cooperation far more than it could have expected
to from its previous policy of open hostility to the US. It was far less
likely, for example, that ASEAN states would provide assistance to the
US in the event of Sino-American conflict over Taiwan.
Perhaps the most notable multilateral initiative undertaken by the
Chinese government was in Central Asia. The Chinese were able to
build on the previous experience of the incremental process of accommodation
over force reductions and border agreements, begun in the
last years of the Soviet Union and completed in the early to mid-1990s
with the successor states, Russia and the three Central Asian states that
bordered China. They first formed an arrangement with those four
countries in 1994 that was to become, seven years later, the Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Embodying elements of cooperative
security, the SCO went beyond these to include a joint pledge to oppose
'the three evils' of separatism, terrorism and Islamic extremism. In this
way Chinese security interests in Xinjiang were linked with an endorsement
together with Russia of the regimes and the territorial integrity of
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.3+ This was a region in which
Chinese influence had been minimal in modern times and where
Russian residual power was still very great. Indeed, the Russians have
established a security mechanism of their own involving CIS states, by
which they are committed to come to the defence of whoever among
them has been subject to attack. That may be seen as a genuine provision
for security, unlike China's more nebulous concept of cooperative
security. Most of the railway networks and lines of communication
linked up with Russia and, even as the Russian economic capabilities
decayed, the greatest economic beneficiaries were the Europeans.
Moreover it was far from certain that China would be able to negotiate
and to b~ild pipelines anytime soon that would give it access to oil or
gas from Central Asia. Distances were great, the costs and difficulties
were enormous and the Chinese were competing against stronger pressures
from the West and elsewhere to build other pipelines.35
Nevertheless, the Chinese attached much of their prestige to the SCO,
which was named after a Chinese city, had headquarters located in
China and was mainly staffed by Chinese. Several military exercises
have been held under its auspices. As the most successful economy of
the region, China is hoping to use its local economy there to good
advantage. The SCO is China's principal point of entry into Central
Asia and China is keen to build on it, despite China's relative lack of
power and influence in the region.
i
China 303
The effects of 9/11
The Bush administration came into office determined to take a tougher
line on China, which it saw as a rising peer competitor. But even before
9/ II it had modified its approach somewhat as a result of the so-called
'EP-3 incident' off the coast of southern China in April, involving a
lumbering propeller-driven intelligence-gathering American plane and a
Chinese jet that was buzzing it. The American crew were detained for
eleven days and the ensuing diplomatic exchanges resulted in a muted
American apology that led to their release. Paradoxically, the incident
increased the respect that each side had for the other. Nevertheless, the
following month the Bush administration announced a substantial increase
in the quantity and quality of the weapons systems it intended to sell to
Taiwan for its self-defence. President Bush added for good measure a ,"
major shift in US doctrine in an interview, saying that he would d~ :whatever
it takes' to help Taiwan defend itself. Hitherto the US posJtlOn of
'strategic ambiguity' had left open the degree of support that would be
rendered to Taiwan so as to prevent that from being tested by either side.
The eleventh of September was immediately seen as a catalyst for
change by both sides. The immediacy of the Chinese response by which
President Jiang telephoned his sympathy and support to President Bush
that very day was unprecedented. Similarly, his willingness to give way on
his right as host to turn over much of the agenda of the APEC meeting in
Shanghai in October to meet Bush's anti-terrorist purposes was also mu~h
appreciated by the American side. The Chinese were seen as partners m
the war against terrorism as they helped persuade the president of
Pakistan to accede to the American demands for assistance in the war
against the Taliban and AI Qaeda in Afghanistan. They also began to ."
share intelligence. The Chinese found a wider audience beyond the
members of the SCO for their claim that the opposition to their rule in
Xinjiang was also terroristic and was linked with external terrorist groups.
The following year the State Department declared that the East Turkistan
Islamic Movement was indeed a terrorist group. The announcement coincided
with the promulgation in Beijing of detailed laws prohibiting
proliferation of WMD and related technology. Both may be seen as signifying
the closeness that had developed between the two sides.
The Chinese authorities seemed to acquiesce as American forces established
a significant presence in Central Asia and strengthened their ties in
Southeast Asia, notably in combating terrorism in Indonesia and the
Philippines. Indeed, the Chinese side went so far as to offer to rescue
American pilots downed in the South China Sea. Although it may have
seemed that China's strategic situation had worsened, China's leaders
304 The post-Cold War period
appeared to calculate that their interests had not been greatly damaged.
The bases used by the Americans in Central Asia were not near China's
borders, and in any case the Russians, who were more immediately
affected, did not contest them. It was not felt in Beijing that the SCO had
been rendered ineffective. Its organization was strengthened and a number
of joint military exercises were conducted with adjoining countries. The
Chinese also found their commitment to stability in the region, as registered
in their sponsorship of the SCO, useful in persuading the Asia
Development Bank to provide loans for extending railway lines and
upgrading roads to link Xinjiang with Central Asia. The Chinese side was
also active in promoting cross-border economic relations. As for Southeast
Asia, the Chinese appeared satisfied that the increased American involvement
was confined largely to the question of opposing terror and that it
was not an obstacle to China's enhancement of its relations with ASEAN.
The one country with whom there was a degree of competition and
rivalry was Japan rather than the United States. The Chinese official press
duly noted adversely the dispatch of Japanese naval ships for the first time
into the Indian Ocean to provide logistic support for the United States in
the war against Afghanistan in 200 1/2002 and then in the war against Iraq
in 2003. There was also a considerable sense of rivalry with Japan in the
Chinese courtship of ASEAN. The Chinese objected to Japanese proposals
to assist with its coastguard in combating piracy and in carrying out joint
rescue operations in the South China Sea. Similarly, new Chinese arrangements
with ASEAN over economics and aspects of cooperative security
were countered by Japanese attempts to establish free trade agreements
with select ASEAN countries and by an agreement to establish a security
community with ASEAN. The Chinese did little to discourage the perception
in the region thatJapan was a waning economic power whose regional
significance was being replaced by China.36 However, both sets of leaders
expended much effort into damage limitation in their bilateral relations so
as to minimize the adverse effects of the various damaging incidents that
seemed continually to arise. Perceptions of the other in their two societies
tended to become increasingly adverse. Opinion polls in Japan showed a
rising concern about China, while popular nationalism in China was ever
ready to express virulent opposition to apparentJapanese misdeeds.37
Yet even the Japanese government expressed appreciation for the way
that that the Chinese government used its new found influence to help
diffuse an increasingly dangerous situation through its active diplomacy
over North Korea. The Clinton administration had claimed that Beijing
had played a useful role behind the scenes in pressing Pyongyang to negotiate
the 1994 Framework Agreement that brought to an end the first
nuclear crisis over North Korea. As that agreement broke down amid
i
China 305
mutual recriminations between the North Korean regime and the Bush
administration in 200 I12002, the North admitted in October 2002 that it
had been working for some time on a nuclear programme based on
enriched uranium in addition to the one based on plutonium, which had
been the only one known to the world outside. That admission, which was
soon withdrawn, at once heightened tensions and brought the Chinese
more openly into the picture. The impasse that had developed meanwhile
between North Korea and the United States over procedural as well as
substantive matters was broken with the intercession of the Chinese. First
they brought the two protagonists together in Beijing in April 2003. Then
at the insistence of the Americans, the Chinese widened the negotiations
to include Russia, South Korea and Japan for the next stage of the negotiations
chaired by the Chinese in Beijing in October that year. The
Chinese, who were the main suppliers of Pyongyang's energy needs,
persuaded the North to attend and they acted as unofficial intermediaries
between the North and the US in seeking to determine the terms under
which the six would meet again under China's auspices in Beijing.38
China's interests, of course, were by no means altruistic, but there was
enough of an overlap with those of the United States and of the other
regional states to enable it to play its role with some effectiveness. In particular,
all were agreed on the desirability of a denuclearized Korean
peninsula and China's interests in stabilizing North-South relations were
acceptable to the other parties, even though there was an element in the
Bush administration that favoured regime change on the grounds that it
did not believe that the North would ever give up its nuclear weapons or its
nuclear programme. But the Bush administration was already overcommitted
elsewhere, notably in Iraq, to the extent that it did not want
another armed conflict, especially in Korea, where the costs and uncertainties
could be extraordinarily high. Hence it welcomed the intercession
of the Chinese.
China's peaceful rise?
Following the relatively smooth and untroubled succession from the third
to the fourth generation of leaders that took place at the Sixteenth Party
Congress in November 2002 and was confirmed at the National People's
Congress in March 2003, a school of thought began to develop in China
that the country's rise as a great power could be peaceful. Indeed it was a
theme explicitly endorsed by the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao,
during his visit to the United States in December 2003.39 It was claimed
that China's emergence as a great power within its region and as an important
player on the world stage need not repeat the historical pattern where
306 The post-Cold War period
such developments have led to major wars. Now that China's leaders have
accommodated themselves to American pre-eminence as the sole superpower
and they recognize that far from declining, the gap between it and a
potential competitor or coalition of competitors is growing, they are said to
be learning to live within a unipolar system. It is a system that has allowed
and facilitated China's economic growth and rising power. It is also one
that has allowed China 'space' to become an economic locomotive for its
region and to become a regional leader. American dominance also ensures
that there will be no wars between the great powers of the region. In short,
China has what has been called a period of a strategic opportunity in
which it can focus on the domestic tasks of economic growth and transformation,
while being assured of a peaceful international environment that is
conducive to its growing economic significance in the world.
There are of course many domestic economic, social and political
developments that could de-rail the seemingly inexorable growth of the
Chinese economy. These include, for example, a possible financial crisis
and a possibility that social discontent with the huge inequities and corruption
inherent in the system could reach levels that could no longer be
contained. Similarly, there is rigidity in the communist system of rule that
erodes its capacity to govern this fast changing society.4o However, to
explore China's domestic problems is to go beyond the scope of this book.
Similarly, there may be sudden changes in the international system that
could upset the benign character of the international setting in which the
Chinese now find themselves. But to speculate about these would also be
inappropriate here.
There are, however, at least two dimensions of China's present stance
towards the outside world that could dramatically damage the benign
prognosis that many foresee for China in the years immediately ahead.
The first concerns Taiwan and the second, the character of China's
communist system. Of these Taiwan is the most significant, as China's
leaders have raised the stakes so high as to place their entire enterprise
in jeopardy.
Put succinctly, the insistence by China's rulers that Taiwan should have
no other future except to unite with the mainland and their determination
to use force to prevent it from becoming formally independent are detrimental
to their stated objectives of stressing the economy and openness.
Taiwan exercises defacto independence and as a result of democratization
it is increasingly asserting its own political identity. Its people have no
desire to unite with a Chinese mainland that is ruled by a communist
dictatorship and the time is long gone when their fate could be decided
without their consent. In this regard they are protected by the United
States. The protection of the United States is conditional, rather than
China 307
absolute. Essentially the American pOSItIon is that it looks forward to a
peaceful settlement between the two sides and that until such time it does
not support formal independence for Taiwan and it also opposes the use of
force by the Chinese mainland. This situation, of neither independence
nor forced unification, has been described by President Bush (the younger)
as the status quo.
China's leaders claim that China is incomplete without Taiwan. It is
seen as the final reminder of the century of shame and humiliation when
bits of China's periphery were detached by aggressive foreigners, and their
recovery is essential for the restitution of China's dignity and standing as a
great power. Indeed it is sometimes claimed that if Taiwan were not united
with the mainland, others with separatist claims in Tibet, Xinjiang and
possibly elsewhere would be emboldened to break up the Chinese state.
Some leaders suspect that the United States stands in the way of unification
precisely to keep China disunited and in an inferior position. The
main focus for the modernization of China's armed forces is the task of
recovering Taiwan. That is the rationale for spending so much money on
buying advanced Russian arms. The Chinese military is the main domestic
beneficiary of China's Taiwan policy, as it is argued that without a credible
military threat there would be nothing to stop the forces promoting independence
on Taiwan from succeeding. The military, therefore, has become
the principal institution that consistently demands taking a tough stand on
Taiwan, and it also insists on the need to prepare to overcome American
naval forces that may come to the aid of Taiwan.
That has various adverse consequences for the domestic and foreign
policies that China's leaders are pledged to pursue. The readiness to use
force (albeit in what the Chinese consider to be a domestic matter) creates
apprehension elsewhere in the region. The targeting of the US by the
Chinese military necessarily complicates relations with America. The
interdependence of the Chinese and Taiwan economies means that
China would incur enormous costs if it were to resort to the use of force,
and the effect in the region as a whole would be very great too.
Meanwhile China pays a heavy diplomatic price internationally for its
single-minded focus on continually insisting that others deny Taiwan and
its leaders what might be called normal courtesies. Finally, China has lost
control over the conduct of cross-Strait relations. It is left in the position
of having to react to the dynamics of domestic Taiwanese politics and of
having to rely upon the United States to curb what Beijing chooses to
regard as unacceptable provocations. Each time a leader on Taiwan is
perceived by Beijing to be making changes in Taiwanese politics that
portend a movement away from unification and towards independence,
China's leaders react adversely. But to be effective in gaining the attention
308 The post-Cold ll1arperiod
of Washington they have to raise the prospect ofa military attack on the
island. Similarly, if they were to try to persuade the people of Taiwan that
their leaders were taking them in too dangerous a direction, they would
have to truly frighten them. So far their attempts to do so have had the
contrary effect of increasing the support for those local leaders, while
giving the impression that the leaders in Beijing are nothing but bullies.
The position of Beijing might be improved if it was able to offer the
people of Taiwan a concept of a 'One China' that they might find attractive.
But so far China's leaders have failed to do so. The best that China's
leaders can hope for is that events may allow them to keep the Taiwan
issue low on their agenda. After all, a self-governing Taiwan has not
prevented China from all the successes it has achieved since embarking on
the road of economic modernization in 1978.41
China's communist system also acts as an obstacle to completing
China's successful integration as a leading power in the region. As
President Clinton famously told President Jiang Zemin at their summit
meeting in 1998, he was on the 'wrong side of history'.42 In other words,
in a more globalized and globalizing world, the trend was towards democracy
and respect for human rights had become a universal concern that
transcended state boundaries. Because of their country's size and power,
China's rulers may well continue to be in a position where they can deny
their workers trade union rights, suppress ruthlessly any perceived organized
opposition from avowed democrats to religious groups of various
kinds, suffocate their ethnic and religious minorities and place themselves
above the law, but they can hardly claim the international leadership and
respect they desire. Even within the region where China is accorded
respect because of its weight, history and growing economic significance,
its dictatorial communist system counts against it. A reminder of the
communist regime's cavalier disregard for legal norms even of its oWn
making was provided in April 2004, when it used its so-called 'right of reinterpretation'
of the Basic Law (Hong Kong's mini-constitution) to
change the process of broadening democracy in the Special Administrative
Region so as to allow Beijing to determine in advance whether there is 'a
need' for change. The actual text of the Basic Law allowed for Beijing to
have a say in the matter only at the end of the process, after the Region
had itself proposed change and the resulting measures had been debated
and passed through the proper institutions of the Region. Evidently, its
fear of democratization is so great that Beijing has been willing to weaken
the 'high autonomy' promised to Hong Kong, despite its clear understanding
that its actions could damage its standing with Western countries
and weaken still further the already low appeal that its proposed formula of
'one country, two systems' enjoys in Taiwan. Actions of this sort only serve
China 309
to raise still higher the barrier for achieving reconciliation with Japan and
to reduce still further the minority of people in Taiwan attracted to the
idea of unification.43
Furthermore it militates against deepening cooperation with others in
line with what the Chinese have proposed as their 'New Security Concept'.
It is one thing to carry out a variety of confidence building measures, but it
is quite another to take that further towards a pattern in which governments
work together to achieve certain goals and to overcome problems in
common. Cooperation of a more enduring kind 'occurs when actors
adjust their behaviour to the actual or anticipated preferences of others,
through a process of policy coordination. Policy coordination in turn
implies that the policies of each state have been adjusted to reduce their
negative consequences for others.'44 A similar point is made differently in
the observation that 'intergovernmental cooperation takes place when the
policies actually followed by one government are regarded by its partners
as facilitating the realization of their own objectives, as the result of a
process of policy coordination'.45 The secrecy inherent in a communist
system precludes that.
However, these systemic problems do not mean that conflict and problematic
relations within the Asia-Pacific region need necessarily attend
China's rise. China has established a workable relationship with the
United States based on the recognition that, despite their differences and
occasional conflicts of interest, the two states share a common commitment
to preserving the international order in this region from which they
both benefit greatly. China has also developed non-adversarial relations
with the other regional great powers, including Japan, Russia and India.
Economic exchanges are growing, giving each an increasing stake in
ensuring that their continuing competition is channelled in less belligerent
ways than in the past. Efforts are also made to institutionalize exchanges
of a multi-layered kind, from regular meetings of leaders, ministers and
military personnel to enhancing social, cultural and educational interchange.
China has also developed relations with smaller neighbours
through multilateral institutions that are seen as mutually beneficial not
only in economic terms, but also in terms of establishing codes of
conduct in the region that do not threaten the core interests of smaller
states. China's approach is seen as sustaining the sovereignty and governance
of states that regard themselves as vulnerable on both counts. Now
that the Chinese side has accommodated itself to continuing American
pre-eminence in the region, China's neighbours no longer feel pressed to
reduce their security links with the US. Beyond that American global preeminence
has provided a context in which the major powers of Asia
(China, Japan, Russia and India) can engage each other in complex
310 The post-Cold War period
patterns of cooperation and conflict without fear of major war. Thus it
seems that China's rulers see the region as multi-tiered and multi-layered
so that a number of economic, political and security relationships can
coexist without necessarily threatening each other. In other words,
China's rise need not necessarily be at the expense of others, and the
American hegemon can accommodate that rise.
Now that China has established workable and cooperative relations with
its neighbours (even including the difficult one with Japan) there is little in
its international environment (other than the question of Taiwan) that
could obstruct its 'peaceful rise'. The main obstacle is domestic rather than
external. The legitimacy of the regime and its capacity to sustain social
order depends on the country's economic performance. China's leaders
claim that they need a continual rise of the GNP by around 7 percent a
year to meet the country's needs and sustain social stability. However, there
is no economy in history that has enjoyed uninterrupted growth over the
long term. The question as to how the regime would survive any significant
economic setback remains to be answered. The country faces deep fault
lines in the economy and society, and so far the regime has not yet
addressed the need for significant reforms of the ruling communist party to
be responsive to the more complex society that has emerged.+6 The danger
is that, faced with the prospect of domestic discontent, China's rulers might
turn to nationalism or 'patriotism' to meet its legitimacy deficits. That
would then increase the likelihood of the use of force across the Taiwan
Strait that would be highly damaging not only to Taiwan, but also to the
US and China itself It would risk unsettling China's neighbours and dissipating
all the advances made in the ten years since 1995.
A more positive vision of China's rise, therefore, is conditional on there
not being a major disruption within China and on Chinese nationalism (or
'patriotism') being held in check. A self-confident nationalism would be
one that did not dwell on China's victimization by others in modern
history and that would recognize that achieving a reconciliation withJapan
was not just a question of requiring the Japanese to admit their guilt for
past brutalities and aggression; it would also be one that finally would
recognize the need to find ways of making unification attractive to the
people of Taiwan. That would also make for a more benign relationship
with the United States, which would not then regard the continuing rise of
China as a challenge to its own pre-eminence.
1
China 311
Notes
See Banning Garret, 'China Faces, Debates the Contradictions of
Globalization', Asian Survl!)' XLi, 3 (May/June 2001), pp.209-427.
2 See the discussion in Joseph Fewsmith, China Since Tiananmen (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 200 I), ch.7, pp. I90-220.
3 Key phrases stressed in both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Party Congresses of
October 1992 and September 1997.
4 For an assessment, see Evan Medeiros and M. Taylor Fravel, 'China's New
Diplomacy', Foreign Affairs 82,6 (November/December 2003), pp.22-35.
5 Fewsmith, China Since Tiananmen (op. eit.), ch.2, pp.44--7I.
6 For accounts of Sino-Russian relations, see Watanabe Koji, Engaging Russia in
Asia Pacific (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 1999); and
Elizabeth Wishnick, 'Russia and China, Brothers Again?', Asian Survey, XLI,S
(September/October 2001), pp.797-821. On Sino-Indian relations, see John
\'\1. Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rival~y in the Twentieth CentuT)' (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2001) and Wahegura Pal Singh Sidhu and
Jing-dong Yuan, China and India: Cooperation or Conflict! (Boulder: Lynn Rienner,
2003). For more details of China's treatment of Mongolia in 1991, see Michael
Yahuda, 'The Changing Faces of Chinese Nationalism: The Dimensions of
Statehood' in Michael Leifer (ed.), Asian Nationalism (London: Routledge, 2000),
pp.30-31.
7 James Mann, About Face: A History if America'.> Curious Relations with China, From
Nixon to Clinton (New York: Alfred A. Kopf, 1998), pp.249-250.
8 See Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas (Boston: Addison Wesley, 1997), ch. I0,
pp.229-248.
9 See Jusuf Wanadi, Asia-Pacific Afler the Cold l1ar Oakarta: Centre for Strategic
and International Studies, 1996).
10 For an account of its origins and early development, see Michael Leifer, The
ASEAN Regional Forum, (London: Oxford University Press, for the International
Institute of Strategic Studies, Adelphi Papers no.302, 1996).
II See the discussion of China's threat perceptions in David Shambaugh,
Modernizing China'.> MilitaT)' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002),
ch.7, pp.284--327.
12 Originally directed against challenging Gorbachev on ideological grounds in
1991, but since cited by Chinese scholars to refer to foreign affairs more generally
and the handling of the US particularly. See my chapter in David
Shambaugh (ed.), Deng Xiaoping: Portrait if a Chinese Statesman (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1995), p.156.
13 Shambaugh, Modernizing China 5Military (op. cit.), p.69ff
14 Robert L. Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics if US.-China Relations,
1989-2000 (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2003), p.143.
15 Address by W. Anthony Lake on 17 May 1994 at the School for Advanced
International Studies,Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC.
16 For an informed account, see Mann, About Face (op. cit.), ch.16, pp.292-314.
17 According to American figures. By 2003 it was to reach US$120 billion.
18 For a succinct account of the two statements, see Alan D. Romberg, Rein ill at
the Brink if the Precipia, American PoliC), Toward Taiwan and US-PRC Relations
(Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003), pp.163-164.
312 The post-Cold War period
]9 This and the following paragraph rely heavily on Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen
(op. cit.), chs 6, 7; and on Romberg, Rein in at the Brink of the Precipice (op. cit.),
pp.164-176.
20 For a more detailed account, see Reinhard Drifte, japan's Security Relations with
China since 1989 (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp.91-10 I.
21 For detailed analysis on which this and the subsequent two paragraphs are
based, see Nancy Berkhopf Tucker, 'The Clinton Years: The Problem of
Coherence' in Michel Oksenberg, Ramon H. Myers and David Shambaugh
(eds), Making China PoliC)1 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001),
pp.59-69. For the disparagement of Japan, see Michael Yahuda, 'China:
Incomplete Reforms' in Gerald Segal and David S.G. Goodman (eds), Towards
Recovoy in Pacific Asia (London: Rout/edge, 2000), p.91.
22 This and the next paragraph draw considerably on Fewsmith, China Since
Tiananmen (op. cit.), ch.7, pp. 190-220.
23 For details, see Romberg, Rein in at the Brink of the Precipice (op. cit.), pp. 180--189.
24 Mann, About Face (op. cit.).
25 See Elizabeth Economy and Michel Oksenberg (eds), China Joins the /IVorld:
Progress and Prospects (New York: Council on Foreign Affairs, 1999). See also
William R. Feeney, 'China and the Multilateral Economic Institutions' in
Samuel S. Kim (ed.), China and the /IVorld (Boulder: Westview Press, 4th edn,
1988), pp.239-263.
26 Alastair lain Johnston, 'China's International Relations: The Political and
Security Dimensions' in Samuel S. Kim (ed.), The International Relations of
Northeast Asia (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), p.70.
27 For an analysis of the significance of this, see Rosemary Foot, Rights Beyond
Borders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
28 Bates Gill, in a private communication, lists at least thirteen separate Chinese
contributions to UN peacekeeping operations as of February 2003, the
majority of which involved the dispatch of military observers.
29 See the discussion in Johnston, 'China's International Relations' (op. cit.),
pp.65-100. See also the analysis of the Chinese strategic debate, David
Finkelstein, China Reconsiders its National Secun·ty: The Great Peace and Development
Debate of 1999 (Alexandria, VA: CNA Corporation, 2000).
30 For an account of the developments that led to this new approach, see David
Shambaugh, 'Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics' in David
Shambaugh (ed.), China and the New Asian Landscape (forthcoming).
31 See David Shambaugh, 'China and the Korean Peninsula: Playing for the
Long Term', Washington Q!!arter[y (Spring 2003), pp.43-56.
32 See Wang Gung Wu, 'China and Southeast Asia: The Context of a New
Beginning' in Shambaugh (ed.), Power Shift (op. cit.).
33 The texts of these and other statements may be found on the ASEAN website,
online at http://www.asean.sec.org/home.htm
34 See Robert S. Ross, 'The Geography of Peace: East Asia in the 21 st Century',
International Security 23, 4 (Spring 1999).
35 John Garver, 'China's Influence in Central Asia: Is It Increasing?' in
Shambaugh (ed.), Power Shift (op. cit.)
36 For further details, see Japan's Naval Power: Responding to New
Challenges', Strategic Comments 6, 8 (London: International Institute of
Strategic Studies, September 2000); D. Kruger and M. Heibert, 'Battered but
still on Top', Far Eastern Economic Review (24 January 2002), pp.24-25; and
,
China 313
Miehael Richardson, Japan Loses Clout as China Surges', Internationat Herald
Tiibune (19 December 200 I).
37 Peter Gries, China's .f\fewNationalism (Berkeley: California University Press, 2003).
38 On the first crisis, see Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas (op. cit.), ch.13. On China's
role in the Bush period, see 'The Koreas: Dangerous Defiance' in International
Institute of Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey 200212003 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003), pp. 194-209.
39 WenJiabao, 'Turning Your Eyes to China', online at
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn./200312/ 121eng20031212_130267.shtml
(accessed 31 March 2004).
40 See Tony Saich, Governance and Politics of China (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001),
especially ch.12, 'Challenges in the Twenty-First Century', pp.294-3 I4.
41 The literature on the Taiwan issue is prodigious, but two recent books may be
usefully consulted: Donald S. Zagoria (ed.), Breaking the Taiwan Impasse (Weslport:
Praeger, 2003); and Romberg, Rein in at the Blink of the Precipice (op. cit.).
42 See Tucker, 'The Clinton Years' (op. cit.), pp.60-6 I.
43 For accounts, see Far Eastern Economic Review (8 April 2004), pp.6, 11; (15 April
2004), p.24.
44 Helen. Milner, 'International Theories of Cooperation Among Nations:
Strengths and Weaknesses', ~Vorld Politics 44, 3 (1992).
45 Robert O. Keohane, Ajio" Hege71lony: Cooperation and Discord in the J1'orld Economy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
46 See the conclusions of Tony Saich, Governance and Politics of China (op. cit.),
pp.310--314.